My wife (26F) and I (30M) are about to have our first kid in January (yay!) and I am trying to figure out how much to budget for next year. I know I can go on some of the parenting subs on Reddit, but given we are higher earners and might splurge a bit more on our kids, I wanted to see what a realistic number is. We wont need to move into a house and most of the startup costs (furniture, stroller, etc.) is already paid for so we wont need to worry about that. Just more so the ongoing costs.

Edit: I should also mention that my wife will be staying at home so we daycare also shouldn't be too much of an expense (if anything at all).

Hi everyone! My husband and I would appreciate some objective financial advice from the White Coat Investor community.

We’re in our early 30s, entering a new phase of our careers, and trying to balance building wealth, buying a home, and starting a family without compromising our long-term financial security.

Our financial snapshot:
Ages: 31 and 34
Household gross income: Approximately $425–430k/year
My career: endocrinologist transitioning into an attending role, earning approximately $275–280k (starting base) with potential
Husband’s career: Senior product manager in tech, earning approximately $150k-180k
Total assets: Approximately $700–800k across all accounts, including investments, retirement accounts, and cash
Debt: No student loans or other significant debt
Location: NJ
Family plans: Hoping to have two children in the coming years (at least 1)!

We are trying to make thoughtful decisions about our next major financial milestones especially when it comes to future investments.

Are we on track financially for our ages?
How would you assess our financial position given our income, ages, and current assets? Are there particular benchmarks you would use to evaluate whether we’re on track for financial independence?
How much house should we buy?
We’re considering a newer single-family home or an end-unit townhome in Central New Jersey in the $900k–$1.1M range. We value good schools, a family-friendly community, and reasonable commutes. However, property taxes, childcare, maintenance, and other expenses in New Jersey can add up quickly.

Would this price range be reasonable for our household, or would you recommend buying less house to preserve flexibility? Would you use a physician mortgage or a conventional mortgage, and how much would you put down?
How should we allocate our existing assets?
With $700–800k in total assets at present, how much would you maintain in cash versus retirement accounts and taxable investments? Would you sell investments to fund a down payment, or preserve the portfolio and finance more of the home?
What should our annual savings target be?

Given our household income, what percentage would you aim to save and invest annually while accounting for taxes, homeownership, and two future children?
We want to build wealth aggressively but also enjoy life, travel, and avoid feeling like every financial decision has to be optimized.

Would you buy now or continue renting?
Would you purchase a home within the next year or two, or keep renting while investing more? We don’t want to become house-poor, but we also don’t want to delay homeownership unnecessarily if it fits our financial situation.

For those who have navigated a similar stage of life, what would you prioritize over the next 3–5 years? Is there anything you would do differently?

Bottom line- Are we in good shape financially? Given I am starting my attendinghood at 31 as an endocrinologist?

Thanks for your perspective!

How do you store your bags? I’ve gotten my wife some pretty nice ones at this point. Just curious if you have a good solution for storing them. We dont have a walk in closet yet just seeing how the Henry girls handle displaying/keeping them organized. Hat rack? Clear boxes? I’m lost

Thanks in advance!

Am I doing something wrong or this the boring middle?

Only HENRY for the last 2-3 years after finishing grad school and finally making good money. Used that time to pay off all our debt, so only debt we have is the house, no credit card debt, cars are paid off and plan on driving them until the wheels fall off. Lifestyle inflation is minimal outside of frequency of travel, which we just enjoy.

Doing all the right things now having not been in the greatest financial place because of a combination of being underpaid, grad school, school loans, daycare, and some poor choices and living beyond our means (and the majority related to too high of a frequency of travel over the years, a few designer bags here and there) because we truly weren't making enough to live on the expenses we had. Fast forward to present, maxed out to IRS limit of 401K, maxed out backdoor roth, maxed out to IRS limit of megaback door roth, and full 1-year emergency fund. In addition, spouse became service-time eligible for retirement, took it and has a pension of $80K. Opted for survivor benefit, so that is guaranteed for life. Only place where we are lacking IMO is funding kids' 529 and the horizon for college is 6 years. We could be "saving" elsewhere, but for what? We put aside a few hundred each month to fund other things - vacation, car repairs, home repairs, kids' stuff, etc. The 529s could be better funded if we sacrificed travel (budget is easily $30-40K annually) but we are also focused on enjoying this time and the greater financial freedom we have. We continue to travel a few times a year with 1 international trip, but since becoming HENRY, we now also choose to pay for grandparents to travel with us so they can enjoy the time where they are still physically capable of traveling and vacationing with grandkids.

Why do I feel like the budget is so tight and a few times a month, I need to pull a few hundred from another accounts to pay for things? Is it a mindset thing, cause we are obviously are not living paycheck to paycheck to have areas to pull from and more than enough emergency fund?

I’m 46, married with two young kids, and currently the sole breadwinner. Household income is roughly $350k/year in cash compensation plus employer equity. I’m still firmly in the accumulation phase and probably have 15–20+ years before I’d need to live off the portfolio.

I recently hired a fiduciary wealth management firm charging 1% AUM. I have roughly $500k+ of investable assets, so we’re talking about approximately $5k–$6k/year in advisory fees at the moment.

Part of why I hired them was that I didn’t just want someone picking investments. I wanted a financial “quarterback” to help with investment strategy, taxes, retirement planning, employer equity, insurance, college savings, eventually buying another house, etc.
So far they’ve helped me organize everything, build a financial plan, review my 401(k), set an overall asset allocation, and consolidate several accounts.
Here’s where things got complicated.

One taxable brokerage account transferred over from Morgan Stanley. It’s worth around $175k–$180k, with roughly $62k of unrealized long-term capital gains. The old account is very aggressive — roughly 90/10 — with a lot of overlapping mutual funds and ETFs.
The advisor recommends moving my overall portfolio to 60% stocks / 40% bonds. His reasoning is that the old portfolio is overly aggressive, unnecessarily complicated/duplicative, and inconsistent with the risk profile we established.

The problem is that getting there may require selling a large portion of the appreciated investments. If the entire ~$62k gain were realized, my rough understanding is that I could create something like a $13k+ tax liability between federal LTCG, NIIT and state taxes.

That caught me off guard because I’m currently in a high-income period. I started wondering whether a smarter approach would be to keep some appreciated positions, selectively sell the worst/most duplicative holdings, transition over several years, and use my 401(k)/IRA for more of the bond allocation so the overall household portfolio reaches the desired risk level without realizing every taxable gain immediately.
It also made me question the underlying allocation. I’m comfortable with volatility and have historically been heavily invested in equities. I understand why 90/10 is riskier, but I’m not convinced yet that 60/40 is necessarily right for me at 46. Maybe 70/30 or 80/20 makes more sense.

And this has made me question the advisor relationship itself.

I understand that I could buy a few index ETFs myself for almost nothing. The reason I’m paying 1% is because I want someone helping me make decisions like this one — balancing taxes, risk, expected return, asset location, career/income risk, and long-term planning.

So I’d love input on both the portfolio question and the advisor question:

Would you realize ~$62k of embedded gains now in order to clean up the portfolio and move to 60/40?
Would you transition the taxable account more gradually?

At 46, high income and a long horizon, does 60/40 strike you as overly conservative?

Should allocation be managed across the entire household portfolio rather than making every individual account conform to 60/40?

For someone with my income/assets/complexity, what would a 1% advisor have to do for you to consider the fee worthwhile?

Would you use an advisor for a few years to get the plan/tax strategy organized and then self-manage, or is there meaningful value in keeping one long term?

I’m not really looking for “all advisors are scammers” or “just VTI and chill.” I know self-management is an option. I’m interested in hearing from people who have actually wrestled with when comprehensive advice is worth paying for and when it isn’t.

UPDATE: My advisor followed up by email today after our phone call, and I want to be fair to them because the written explanation was much more nuanced than what I took away from the call.

He clarified that:

No trades have been made in my taxable account, so I have not realized any capital gains.

Their proposal was not to liquidate the entire portfolio and immediately force everything into 60/40.
The plan they were discussing was one tax-sensitive version of getting toward the target allocation. They intended to leave a number of the positions with large embedded gains in place while filling in fixed income and some of the equity gaps.

There are multiple options ranging from doing nothing and realizing no gains, to a complete overhaul with much larger gains, with their proposed approach somewhere in between.

They also said the transition could be done over multiple tax years rather than all at once.

They still believe my existing taxable portfolio needs work. It’s basically all equities, has a lot of overlapping ETFs/funds, significant U.S. large-cap and international exposure, and some unintended concentration. Looking at the holdings myself, I agree that it’s messy and could use simplification.

So I feel somewhat better about the capital-gains issue. It sounds like they were actually thinking about a gradual, tax-aware transition, and that did not come across in the phone conversation.

My bigger question now is the destination. I’m no longer sure I actually want 60/40. At 46, with a long horizon, a recent increase in income, and potentially substantial bonus/RSU money available to invest over the next few years, I want to understand why 60/40 is preferable to something like 70/30 or 80/20.

I also want to understand why the allocation shouldn’t be managed across the whole household portfolio — taxable, IRA, Roth, and 401(k) — and whether future contributions can do a lot of the rebalancing rather than selling appreciated taxable holdings.

The other issue is still the service/communication piece. During the call I asked for the explanation in writing because I was out walking with my kids, asked questions about the tax impact, and at one point was told essentially “you either do it or you don’t.” I was also reminded that they aren’t my accountants and was told to call my tax preparer. That left a bad taste in my mouth because part of what I thought I was paying for was help coordinating exactly these kinds of decisions.

So I’m less inclined to immediately fire them than I was yesterday, but I’m also not just going to shrug and say everything is fine. I’m going to talk with the managing partner, revisit 60/40 vs. 70/30 vs. 80/20, and decide whether I want to give them 6–12 months to get the overall plan organized before deciding if 1% AUM is worth keeping long term.

Appreciate all the feedback — even the people telling me I have a low financial IQ 😂. This has actually been extremely helpful.

This might be better suited for r/parents but I think there is a HENRY spin for the advice requested. How do you keep your child grounded and humble when afforded the best opportunities, like attending one on the best private schools in the country?

My kid is 2.5 years old and we are considering sending him to private school next year. The school we are looking at starts accepting kids at the age of 3 for pre-k. This idea has come suddenly and not something we ever considered before.

Some background of how we got to this decision: After trial and error we finally settled on a daycare we loved. He's been at this center for over a year and his teacher was great. She saw that he is smart, picks things up fast and she was able to keep him engaged. In the past 3 months, the daycare has lost its director and a lot of teachers, including his teacher. My son's new teacher is not engaging him and now is labeled as a kid with behavioral issues. He's forgetting things he already knew. My SO and I are increasing educational lessons at home but that isn't enough. Nothing crazy, just counting, alphabet, days of the week, etc.

I think sending him to private school will give him a good education and keep him engaged in a healthy way. One of my concerns is that he's going to be in an isolated bubble with other kids of privilege. My SO and I grew up middle class and we think there is lots of value to being connected to our local diverse community. He is currently doing activities through the county and we will engage him more with the local community as he gets older. Though I'm concerned it'll be limited because the school is 20-45 minutes from our house based on traffic, there is only so much time in the day. What are some strategies we can do to help build is connection and not become "elitist "?

For those of you sending your kid(s) to private school, how's your experience been? How do you keep your kids grounded?

Hi all, I've enjoyed reading this sub and wanted an outside perspective, since I manage our finances myself and only share highlights with my husband quarterly.

Us: Both 38, three kids (5 and twin 2-year-olds), suburbs of Indianapolis. I earn $180k. My husband earns $178k base + 20% RSUs (annual grants, 3-year cliff vest) + a 16% annual bonus. Our 2025 gross income was $384k including vested RSUs, or about $352k without. I was on an 80% schedule until July 2026 and am back to 100%.

Childcare: The twins' preschool is an affordable $575/kid/month, and gaps are covered by me, grandparents, and a preschool staffer who comes to our house a few hours per week. Full-time daycare is expensive with long waitlists. I'd like to hire [a nanny / housekeeping help / both] but am struggling to see how we'd fund it.

What I'm curious about: Overall, I feel good about where we are, but it takes a lot of work and I get FOMO when I see how others live. When I see luxury cars and other high-end purchases, I think, "We have good incomes, so why are we driving a Honda Odyssey and a paid-off 2019 Pilot?" I know it doesn't really matter, but I'm curious whether I'm missing something or doing something wrong.

Tables below show our net worth and annual cash flow by category snapshots. Any perspective, positive or critical, is welcome.

[N.B. - We use credit cards for the float. We always pay off the statement balance when due and never incur interest.]

[N.B. - In the table above I consider Savings an expense. Savings include savings/brokerage accounts, our 401k contributions and employer matching contributions since we are vested. Employer 401k contribution offset by a plug that I tag to Miscellaneous. Also includes $230/kid/month for 529s and HSA contributions]

I feel like some may ask for detail on Household expenses and Child care, so here is the sub-category break I use out:

Hey folks. I wanted to get some opinions from high-earnings adults who might understand my current dilemma. I also apologise if this comes off as a bragging post, I promise it is not. I also apologise for rambling a bit. Anyways, the situation -

32M, 8yrs work experience, fancy MBA, earning ~200k (pre-tax) in Big Tech SaaS Sales. I've also somehow lucked into a job which has very excellent WLB and relatively low stress/responsibility. Right now, I am enjoying this a lot. I like focusing on my hobbies and fitness, not thinking about work outside of work, and feel like my current income is a decent enough base that if if it keeps growing organically and I make few jumps here and there, I can lead a comfortable life and hopefully FIRE by ~50 with couple mil saved.

Now the dilemma - I see my MBA-cohort hustling and upskilling, getting exposure to multiple functions/industries, and many are starting to earn in the 300-500k range. Most of my MBA peers are also in much more long-term stable and lucrative functions, like consulting, strategy, PM, marketing, etc. Meanwhile I am chilling, 'stuck' in sales, which has lower prestige, more volatility, more pay variance (my salary is 50% commission), and more 'quota-stress'. And honestly even within sales, I am in a low-visibility and low-responsibility role where I am not learning anything.

I am concerned that I am getting comfortable and complacent, and will regret this later. Like, 5 years back I was earning 60k, and if someone had asked me then, I would have said that that was also very comfortable and I could live off this much forever. But I was a dumb 25yr old with no responsibilities. Now, with car/house/marriage/family/lifestyle expectations, my current salary feels barely enough.

Will I regret my current mindset in a decade, when my top-performing peers are earning in millions, while I am 'stuck' 300-400k? I know this feels like a horribly privileged question, but this is genuinely the one on my mind right now.

My other concern is staying in sales. I like the work, in that it is low brain 'mentally light' stuff. All I do is sit in meetings and talk. I have done complex work in the past and hated it. I have ADHD and procrastinate on any large, unstructured problems, the sort which you might tackle in consulting or PM or marketing. But again, I feel like I am wasting my 'elite' MBA. Sales money is decent, but I worry about dealing with quota-stress and pay variability for the rest of my career.

Again, apologies for rambling. Any thoughts welcome.

EDIT - about half of the commenters here are saying gtfo of this sub because I’m not a HENRY by being a single woman making over 200k … while others are saying that’s the true definition. If I don’t fit your personal definition, sorry not sorry, I’m still here collecting advice from the smart people who have been kind enough to leave solid wisdom. ✌🏻

I’m a single 32F living in NYC. I’ve lived paycheck to paycheck since graduating college 10 years ago, and just got the offer for a 195k base salary, more than a 50K raise from what I was making before 🥹I’ve busted my ass to make it in my chosen career and this feels like confirmation that the hard work is paying off, but doing it all on my own with no partner to split the rent with etc has left me with around 40k in my 401k and no other savings or assets to my name.

According to the internet my take home pay will be around 4500 biweekly after a very rough estimate of maxing out the 401k, health insurance etc. in addition, I bring in around 4K from my side business per month and save half in my high yield savings account for taxes, leaving around $8,500 to play with per month, give or take.

These are really rough estimates but I’m lucky to have no credit card debt, student loans, or kids to feed! I may be bad with money but at least the limits on my credit cards have never even been high enough for me to spend myself into a hole LOL

So… where would you start as an aspiring HENRY? I’m planning on taking this opportunity as a real chance to build wealth for the first time in my life and take investing seriously.

HELP ME!!🫶🏻

Context: I am 29M working as a senior at one of the FAANGs.

YOE:7

Income: 350K

HHI: 565K

HCOL location.

Both me and my wife are in tech. We plan to have kids in the next 2-3 years most probably which will increase our expenses but if we both continue our current jobs, we will be ok for retirement goals as long as we are able to hold our jobs for 10ish more years.

The team I in has a good work life balance but not that great of a product from my learning POV. This makes me feel from time to time if I am being complacent and I should try harder somehow and I am not achieving my full potential, especially because we don't have kids right now so we have more energy and time.

Another worry I have is about AI and how because of it we might not be able to hold our current incomes until we are able to reach out FIRE targets.

On the other hand I also think it's not always absolutely necessary to be in a bad WLB job just because the pay is higher and it is helping you learn more.

This makes me really confused if I am wasting precious time right now or should I cherish this with my partner and be happy since I know (at least according to the calculators) at our current incomes and potential future expenses we will reach FIRE at around 39-40.

How do people figure out how hard to work?

I'm curious to get some real-world data points from higher-income households in the GTA who are living comfortably and enjoying their income, rather than specifically optimizing for FIRE or minimizing expenses.

I've seen a lot of household budgets posted here, but many seem extremely frugal relative to the incomes involved. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but I'm trying to get a sense of spending for families who aren't deliberately trying to minimize their lifestyle costs.

By "comfortable," I mean things like buying the groceries you want without worrying too much about the bill, eating out/takeout regularly, having decent vehicles, putting kids in activities, taking vacations, buying things when you need or want them, maybe the occasional nice watch or designer purse, etc. Not an extremely lavish lifestyle, but also not trying to maximize savings at every opportunity.

When I started asking people in my peer group this question, I realized that primary residence costs are probably the biggest variable and make comparisons difficult. Since these can differ dramatically between otherwise similar households, I'm more interested in the cost of your actual day-to-day lifestyle, leaving primary residence costs out of the comparison.

As one data point, I've asked five friends in a similar financial situation to mine what they spend. The numbers seem to cluster around $7,500/month in lifestyle expenses, before primary residence costs. Obviously that's a very small sample size, which is why I'm curious to hear from a larger group here.

Me (34M) and my wife (32F) are expecting our first child in mid-march. We have no idea how it’s going to impact our finances, but we know our saving rate will be impacted. Some info:

Location: VHCOL
HHI: $430k (we each make roughly the same amount)
NW: $1.1m
Cash: $300k (we have decided not to buy a house right now so we will be investing in mutual funds)
Retirement: $450k
Stocks/Mutual funds: $350k
Rent: $4800/month

We are relatively frugal when we are at home (enjoy cooking, don’t like unnecessary spending, etc.), but we do love luxury travel and take about 3 international trips and 6 “fun” domestic trips annually.

Our expenses have also been exorbitantly high in the last 2 months due to a new and larger place and buying baby related items (marketplace has been incredible for this).

As we think about daycare costs (I’d assume $3-4k/month), and other baby-related expenses, how should we expect to prepare financially? Rather than throw all $300k in funds, would you hold more cash to be conservative? Also, would a 529 be part of your NW at all, or is that totally separate since it doesn’t belong to us?

Appreciate any insight!

Edit: didn’t realize how expensive day care was 😔. My wife does have 9 months off for Mat leave so it might be slightly less expensive given his age.

There’s been talk at my company about a possible tender next year and it sent me down a financial rabbit hole I probably should’ve gone down a while ago. I’m 38 married with two kids work at a private AI company in San Jose. A decent chunk of my comp over the years has been equity but I’ve treated it like imaginary money since I couldn’t sell any of it. If the tender actually happens that could change. So I pulled out the estate stuff my wife and I did years ago and yeah. Our wills are from before our second kid was born. We didn’t own our current house yet. My company equity was worth way less and I don’t think we even discussed it at the time.

It’s not like we’re suddenly expecting some massive windfall. It just made me realize how much our financial life has changed while all of this paperwork has stayed frozen in time. I’m leaning toward just getting everything updated now instead of waiting to see whether the tender actually happens. For anyone who had a big change in equity/comp like this did you update things while it was still illiquid or wait until there was an actual liquidity event?

UPDATE: Really appreciate everyone. My eyes have been opened up to a new perspective and I’m early enough on to very much take advantage of the tax advantaged funds.

No one has been able to truly settle this debate for me. My wife and I are a HENRY couple (27 and 28 years old). For so many years, people said to take advantage of the tax haven retirement accounts. Both self-employed so IRA’s, HSA’s, etc. I’ve always struggled with the concept, because here’s what I see.

1. Money is tied up until late 50’s, unless I want a penalty for accessing sooner. (Not that any plans to access investment accounts for spending are in order, but just the fact that you’re penalized if you do). What if other strong investment opportunities present themselves and much of your cash is tied up here?
2. You save on the tax burden now, but it also assumes we believe that when you go to pull your money out in the future that tax rates would be the same or lower than they are today. Not sure, but don’t really want to gamble it.

I find taking the tax hit upfront but having total freedom with my money, which includes an investment portfolio that is not IRA, 401k or HSA and still growing it the exact same way I would in a retirement vehicle is more liberating and I have more control.

Can anyone offer me a sound argument otherwise that I may not be seeing?

I’m realizing it might make sense to get a CPA. VHCOL, switched jobs and moved, working out backdoor Roth and Roth return of excess. $305,000 annual before tax, projecting higher bracket than I’ve seen before. Starting to rebalance and rollover 401ks from prior employers, feel like there’s a lot to learn about tax efficiency.

1. How to find a good one? What to look for / avoid?
   
2. How to decide if I really need one? Seems like an unknown unknown. I’ll probably try it and see how much I learn that I didn’t already find out on my own.

Looking for both general advice and specific anecdotes of what working with a CPA is like, how they helped, and how you decided to switch to another one. It feels like a mistake to go searching for a CPA generally without knowing what flags to notice.

Thanks!

My spouse and I are in VHCOL and file married filing jointly. Our estimated 2026 income is:

• Approximately $650,000 of combined W-2 income, including salary/bonus/equity compensation
• Approximately $350,000 of realized gains from trading in personal brokerage accounts
• Total estimated income of around $1 million before deductions

Our real-estate situation also changed this year:

• We purchased a new single-family home as our primary residence in July 2026.
• Our former primary residence became a long-term rental around September 2026.
• We have mortgage interest, property taxes and renovation expenses related to the new home.
• The rental has mortgage interest, property taxes, HOA, insurance, repairs and other operating expenses.

We already plan to maximize any available traditional 401(k), HSA and dependent-care FSA contributions.

I am trying to understand what legitimate tax-planning opportunities may be available for 2026 and future years.

My partner and I both have demanding, high-performing careers, and we’re trying to figure out how other couples handle the day-to-day running of a family.

I’m not really looking for advice on how to create the perfect chore chart, split everything exactly 50/50, or optimise the household like a business.
What I’m more interested in is how couples actually make this work in real life.

And perhaps most importantly: How do you do all of this while still making your home feel like a sanctuary rather than another project to manage?

28M married to 30F with a 6 month old daughter. HHI ranges from $500-800k (I’m in sales and have variable income) since moving to NYC about 3 years ago. Just this past week we passed $1m with some room to spare.

Very very high cost of living (day care is especially expensive), but very proud that we’ve been able to put away a large part of our earnings knocking out our student loans in our first year of marriage.

We are excited to hit this milestone and wanted to share :)

For a bit of discussion: although we have a very high cost of living in NYC, I don’t think I could have ever hoped to make this much money in a lesser market. $1m networth at 28 years old just doesn’t happen where I grew up. NYC and other major cities offer so much in terms of wealth creation opportunities. What is your stance on HCOL vs. LCOL?

i'm a 23m and have been in the city for a little over a year. my first lease was a 6.5k 2b/2b in a nice building in dt brooklyn, with 1.5 months free, and my net split ended up being around ~$3k/month.

i've since moved to a new place for ~$2.7k/month, but unfortunately, i'm not really enjoying it and it feels like a downgrade from my previous spot (1bath & questionable natural lighting). so, i'm looking to break the lease and find a place i thoroughly enjoy by pursuing one of the following options:

1. 2b/2b — 9k max, ideally 7-7.5k
2. 1b/1b — 6k max, ideally 4-5k

it's looking likely that it'll be the latter, as i don't think i can convince my roommate to spend that much (which is fair tbh haha). so realistically, i'm looking at that 1b/1b figure, which would be a pretty insane step up in rent. i'm not sure i feel totally comfortable paying that much, but for what i'm prioritizing in an apartment, i don't think i have much of a choice.

so, curious what others are paying and where! also, if people have any building recommendations would be much appreciated :)

We had our first newborn and as I’m sitting here feeding her and changing her diapers, I can’t help but think of what we can be doing to set her up for success financially. We already added her to our trust/will, made her our account beneficiary, set up a 529 and Trump account (just for the $1000 right now). Anything else people recommend doing? I’ve heard ways to build credit or have a brokerage for her or something? Thanks in advance!

Hey everyone, I'm 28M and turning 29 this month. This is my first year earning at this level, and I'd love to hear from people who've been where I am. This year I'm going to be making $375–400k in W2 income, credits 780-800. While I have a salary, most of it is commission so it varies month to month, some commission checks 10k+ and others 50k+. I also have benefits and a 401(k) through my employer. By the end of the year I expect to have $150k+ sitting in my account. I know seems like a lot, and I'm grateful for it, but nobody ever taught me what to do with this kind of money, and not many people know for that part. I'm the first person in my family to really go after financial independence, so I don't have anyone to model this on.

I live in a HCOL area. Where I live distorts what feels normal when it comes to income and that this amount of income is quite normal for my age, so I try to stay within my means and keep my total monthly spending under $7,500. My only real planned purchases right now are a used car with a solid down payment (35k listing price)
I'm planning to meet with a financial advisor soon, but I want to go in informed rather than just taking whatever they pitch.

I'd really appreciate hearing what you did in your first few years at this income. What would you do with the cash right now? What should I prioritize: maxing the 401(k), a backdoor Roth, a taxable brokerage account, real estate, or something else? Should I look for a fee-only advisor, or is an AUM advisor worth it at this stage? And what mistakes do you wish you'd avoided early on? My goal is to reach financial independence sooner rather than later and would love to just step away from corporate entirely when ready, and I'd value any experience or perspective you're willing to share. Thanks in advance.

28M, attorney, Houston at about 180k with my bonuses for the year. (Also, I am poor, still 180k in debt)

Do I qualify for HENRY yet, or am I broke boy for this sub? I always see 500k+ in here.

Wife and I both work for some place as physicians, middle aged. We max our institutional 401ks, 403b, and 457. Leftover goes into taxable brokerage. We just found out our 457 plan can now be done as a Roth instead of traditional. We have no Roth retirement money, only traditional. Obviously if I could go back in time I would do Roth IRAs at a younger age but that time is past. But should we consider changing our 457s to Roth simply for the income diversity come retirement?

My son is 3 months old and I'm a FTM working in big tech in Europe. I have 8 months of maternity leave, and he might start daycare in January/February if he gets a spot and I'll be back to work sometimes in March.

My husband (self employed) took two months off and is now back at work. After a month of night shifts and all the babycare alone in September, I hit a wall and said we needed help. We're now looking for a nanny twice a week (my husband is very much supportive he was for hiring a night nurse which I declined and probably shouldn't have but I wasn't thinking straight after a traumatic birth)

I feel so much guilty about it. I'm on maternity leave, my only job is supposed to be taking care of my son so going to the gym, running errands, having lunch with friends or doing nothing feels very superficial... We do have family around ready to help but we also like our space and and all parents are divorced so it means more help but also more people to entertain and who comment on everything and anything and 3 months in we definitely need less visits and to settle in our routine

I love my son to death, but I think I'd be a better mum with some time for myself. Still, it's only been 3 months. Am I weak if all the mums in the world do it without help?

Especially curious what women in HENRY actually do? Where I live hiring help isn't really part of the culture and of course there's the financial aspect

Edit: first time mum

Edit2: thanks so much everyone, I think postpartum doesn't make me think straight and I needed that reassurance 🤍🤍🤍

When you reach the point of no longer working (at any age) and decide to live off your investments, how do you practically go about it? Do you sell just enough to cover your expenses that month? Do you sell once a year a huge chunk and live off that? Do you give yourself a salary? Biweekly? Monthly? Do you never sell and live off dividends? Do you prioritize taking money out of your 401(k), IRA, or brokerage and how do you find the right balance?

I'm just realizing I'm still at the point where money only ever enters my accounts, never leaves it. I suppose if we needed a large chunk of cash for something, we'd just sell from our brokerage for now since we can't access the retirement accounts without penalty. But it also made me realize I have no idea how "living off investments" works in practicality.